Complementary CurrencyOpen Source Exchanges

Types of Economy

– Gift Economy

– National Money

– Barter

– Complementary Currency

Gift EconomyThere is a trust in the community

• Woolly Mammoth– positive-selfish vs. negative-generous interest

• Glynn Isaac - “Home Base”

National Money

• Not value-neutral (all economics assumes value-neutral)�

• Taxes must be paid back

• Legal right to enforce an obligation

• Who has the trust?

Barter

• One to one

• Inefficient: startup cost for each relationship

Complementary Currency

• Add value to community, not just individual

• Improves scalability beyond bartering

Considerations

– What changes in the community?

• Scalability

• Symptoms

• Trust

• World View

Rivalrous vs. Non-rivalrous

• Benkler: "we consider a good to be nonrival when its consumption by one person does not make it any less available for consumption by another." (wealth of networks, p.36)�

• Lessig "Future of Ideas"

Keeping Open Currency

OpenSourceCurrency.org

– Integrity

– Transparency

– Interoperability

– Consensus Decision-making (Commons) �

– Quick fixes to bugs

• Imagine the cost of a bug in the NYSE

Jibberish

– Can you change the world with a closed world

view?

– “If you have understood me, then I must not

have made myself clear.” – Alan Greenspan

Currency Systems

• Ithaca Hours, Fureai Kippu, Swiss WIR

Houston Hope TimeBank

Presenters

• OpenSourceCurrency.org– For details on Austin efforts

• Tom Brown –herestomwiththeweather@gmail.com

• Rich Vázquez– Rich.vazquez@gmail.com

– AustinTimeExchange.org